“The Comfort of Ghosts: A Maisie Dobbs Novel” by Jacqueline Winspear: Page One Describes Man With Textbook Mirror-Symptom of Multiple Personality

Prologue, London, October 1945

“The man caught a glimpse of his reflection…At first he did not recognize his face…He had avoided mirrors during the long journey home (1, p. 1).

Multiple Personality Textbook

“MPD patients often report seeing themselves as different people when they look into a mirror…In some instances these alterations of perception of self are so disturbing that the individuals may phobically avoid mirrors (2, p. 62).

1. Jacqueline Winspear. The Comfort of Ghosts: A Maisie Dobbs Novel. New York, Soho Crime, 2024.  

2. Frank W. Putnam MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press, 1989.

Added June 30: I will have nothing further to say on this book, in which I lost interest.

“Mind Games” (post 4) by Nora Roberts: Mr. Riggs, the Murderer, may be Thea’s Self-persecuting Alternate Personality; and a hunch on politicians

In previous posts, I noted that Thea has multiple personality, and that, as she says, the murderer has what she has. Moreover, as alternate personalities, they could communicate with each other telepathically. In short, the murderer may be Thea’s self-persecuting alternate personality. But what is that?

Self-Persecuting Alternate Personalities

At least half of all MPD patients have alternate personalities who see themselves as enemies of the host [regular] personality (2, p. 108). These internal persecutors sabotage the patient and may even want to seriously harm or kill the person. The perceived degree of separateness that allows one personality to believe it can harm another personality [or their loved ones] without endangering itself would mean the patient were delusional, except for the fact that the regular personality typically does not share the delusion of invulnerable separateness (2, p. 108).

Reservations: I’m only three-quarters through this novel, so it’s possible the author will have a better interpretation. But even if my interpretation best fits the facts, I don’t expect the author to agree with it, because she has not explicitly raised the issue of multiple personality. What prompts my interpretation at this time is that I have finally paid attention to a glaring fact, that the murderer’s name is “Riggs.”

It is a famous fact that former president Trump erroneously thought he lost the previous presidential election, because it had been “rigged” by electoral fraud. I speculate that the famous word “rigged” entered Nora Robert’s mind, and she used it to name her villain.

And I speculate that Mr.Trump, a very bright person, was misled by his own self-sabotaging alternate personality. For I consider it probable that some great politicians, like many great novelists, have multiple personality trait.

Added June 21: I finished reading this novel: Good triumphs over evil. The psychological issues I raised in posts one to four are not addressed. For interesting discussions related to this author, please search “Nora Roberts” and “pseudonyms” in this blog.

1. Nora Roberts. Mind Games. New York, St. Martin’s Press, 2024.

2. Frank W. Putnam MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press, 1989.

“Mind Games” (post 3) by Nora Roberts: Both Thea and the Murderer have Multiple Personality and Mental Telepathy

The murderer hears voices taunting him and screaming in his head, and he sees Thea standing behind him in a mirror. They both can interact with people and things at a distance. In short, Thea says, “He has what I do” (1, pp. 110-120), except that she uses it for good and he uses it for evil.

Comment: Hearing voices in the head (2, pp. 62, 94) and seeing other people in the mirror (2, p 62) are symptoms of multiple personality (a.k.a. dissociative identity disorder). As far as I know, mental telepathy is fiction.

1. Nora Roberts. Mind Games. New York, St. Martin’s Press, 2024.

2. Frank W. Putnam MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press, 1989.

Novelist R. O. Kwon Tells New York Times Book Review that she asks her Characters about Their Sexual Desires

N.Y. Times: “What makes a good sex scene?

R.O. Kwon: “Since the house of fiction is large, holding infinite rooms, I suppose there must be at least as many varieties of well-imagined sex scenes. But when I’m writing one, I ask my characters what they want, what else they want, and what else on top of that. I want so much, all the time, and my characters usually do, too” (1).

Comment: Many novelists are able to consult their characters, because they experiences their characters as having minds of their own, which is the essence of alternate personalities in multiple personality.

Many novelists, probably 90%, have a creative, high-functioning version of multiple personality, which I call “multiple personality trait” (as opposed to multiple personality disorder).

The New York Times Book Review probably thinks novelists are either joking or crazy when make this “joke,” time and again. However, as I argue in this blog: all these novelists are neither joking nor crazy.

Added same day: However, I see in a past post, that I gave up on this author's previous book. I plan to try the new one. 

1. N.Y. Times Interview. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/13/books/review/ro-kwon-interview-by-the-book-exhibit.html 

“Mind Games” (post 2) by Nora Roberts: Thea has “parts,” a euphemism for alternate personalities in multiple personality

“Part of her thought…but the other part knew…(1, p. 57).

Comment: In multiple personality (a.k.a. dissociative identity disorder), an alternate personality is a part of the person that has a mind of its own, which may disagree with other “parts.”

In the psychiatric evaluation of a patient for multiple personality, the experienced interviewer will initially avoid asking patients if they have any other “personalities," but instead use the euphemism, “parts” (2, p. 92).

Search “parts” in this blog for its discussion in past posts on other novels.

1. Nora Roberts. Mind Games. New York, St. Martin’s Press, 2024.

2. Frank W. Putnam MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press, 1989.

“Mind Games” (post 1) by Nora Roberts: Thea says her grandmother has “LOUD” thoughts

Thea, age 12, has the ability to read minds (1, front flap), and this is especially true of reading her grandmother’s mind, because her grandmother’s thoughts are “so loud ” (1, p. 4).

Comment: The only place I have ever read of “loud thoughts” is a textbook on multiple personality disorder (a.k.a. dissociative identity disorder): “Almost always the voices [of alternate personalities] are described as being “heard” within the patient’s head or experienced as “loud thoughts" (2, p. 62).

If Nora Roberts has multiple personality trait, a creative asset, common among successful novelists, she may have experienced “loud thoughts.”

1. Nora Roberts. Mind Games. New York, St. Martin’s Press, 2024.

2. Frank W. Putnam MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press, 1989. 

“Brooklyn” by Colm Tóibín: Protagonist feels as though she were “two people,” by which the author inadvertently refers to multiple personality

“She wished now that she had not married him [her American husband], not because she did not love him and intend to return to him, but because not telling her mother or her friends [back in Ireland] made every day she had spent in America a sort of fantasy…It made her feel strangely as though she were two people” (1, p. 226).

Comment: This novel makes no explicit reference to multiple personality (a.k.a. dissociative identity), but when the protagonist returns to Ireland for her sister’s funeral, she feels like “two people,” like two distinct personalities, the condition’s essence. And since the author is a novelist who “lives in Dublin and New York” (back cover), his protagonist’s split personality may reflect his own, creative, multiple personality trait (this blog’s thesis).

Please search “bigamy” in this blog for further discussion.

1. Colm Tóibín. Brooklyn. New York, Scribner, 2009/2015. 

2. Wikipedia. “Brooklyn (novel). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_(novel) 

“Reasons to Stay Alive” a Memoir by novelist Matt Haig: His MIRROR SYMPTOM of Multiple Personality

Memoir

“I stared at myself in the mirror. I stared at my face until it was not my face” (1, p. 44)…Like my reflection showed another person” (1, p. 46)…An urge to be someone else/anyone else” (1, p. 47)…The desire to step out of myself for a while. A week, a day, an hour. Hell, just for a second” (1, p. 48).

Textbook

“MPD patients often report seeing themselves as different people when they look into a mirror” (2, p. 62).

Comment: I would attribute Matt Haig’s mirror symptom of multiple personality to many novelists’ creative asset, what I call “multiple personality trait.” He does not mention multiple personality (a.k.a. dissociative identity).

1. Matt Haig. Reasons to Stay Alive (a Memoir). New York, Penguin Life, 2015.

2. Frank W. Putnam, MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press, 1989. 

“The Women” (post 2) by Kristin Hannah: Alternate personality speaks to protagonist in third-person italics from start (post 1) to finish (post 2)

“You know love, Frankie (1, p. 435).

Comment: The author evidently takes this kind of third-person, voice-in-the head, multiple-personality experience, for granted, as a feature of her multiple personality trait.

1. Kristin Hannah. The Women. New York, St. Martin’s Press, 2024. 

“The Women” (post 1) by Kristin Hannah: Protagonist hears italicized voice in her head

“Wait.

“Think about it, Frankie. It could be dangerous” (1, p. 14).

Comment: Search “voices” and "italicized voices” in this blog for discussions in past posts re various novels and novelists.

1. Kristin Hannah. The Women. New York, St. Martin’s Press, 2024.